Who Collects the Money for House Cleaning?

“Who collects the money for house cleaning? Should my employees accept payment? And what if the maid or house cleaner sees how much the client is paying for house cleaning? I’m trying to grow my cleaning company but losing employees because they think they’re doing all the work. And they should be making all the money.”

Who collects the money is a great question and Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru tackles it today. As a cleaning business owner, you have to collect money for house cleaning service but who collects the money is up to you.

You can accept payments online and your clients can pay by credit card. And if you accept credit card payments your employees will never see the money. Bill collecting is part of every job transaction and should be seamless.

Show Sponsors:

Today’s Ask a House Cleaner sponsors are Savvy Cleaner (maid service training.) Savvy Perks (employee benefits you can offer your house cleaners.) My Cleaning Connection (a resource hub for cleaning supplies.) And HouseCleaning360 (a business network connecting homeowners with house cleaners and maids.

Listen: Who Collects the Money for House Cleaning?

Watch: Who Collects the Money for House Cleaning?

Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer.

Question: Who Collects the Money for House Cleaning?

How do you collect money from a customer when your employee goes out and does the job? Are they supposed to collect the money? Or do you get it directly from the customer? That’s an excellent question that comes from a house cleaner.

“Hi Angela, I’m thinking about starting a house cleaning business I have so many questions. As my business grows and I hire employees, how should I handle the payment exchange? For instance, when my employee’s going to clean the houses, should they take the payment and give them to me? Or should the customer’s make the payment directly to me? I would like to know. Thank you.”

Alrighty, so that’s a fair question. How do you collect the money from a customer if your employee does the job?

Answer: Who Collects the Money – Then vs. Now

Now it used to be back in the olden days before we accepted credit cards, we used a drop box. We would have a little box on the side of our house or on the side of our office. Customers would come by and drop their money or suggestions, or complaints inside. And that would give us the money that we needed to turn around and pay our employees.

There are house cleaners who just have the employees bring the money back. But there are also employees who have taken the money and have just skipped town, never to be seen or heard of again.

So, you don’t want to get in a situation where you’re fighting with the customer and the employee about the money that’s received.

Who Collects the Money Could Be Causing Problems?

A lot of house cleaners will look at the money and they assume, “Oh my boss is making all this extra money. And I’m the one that did all the work.” And that makes them angry because they don’t recognize the fact that running a business includes so much more than making payroll.

We still pay for bonding and insurance. And cleaning supplies and vehicle expenses and gasoline for the car. Did I mention uniforms and a whole bunch of other things that we need to run a business?

And so, they just assume that “I did all the work, I should make all the money.” And receiving a payment from the customer is one of the biggest reasons why employees leave your company. Then go out and start their own house cleaning businesses.

They don’t understand that they are a cost of the business. Yes, part of the money earned pays their salaries but the rest of the money pays everything else.

Who Collects the Money? You via Credit Card

Okay so, how do you get the money? We are now in an era, yay! Of credit cards, and so people get to use their credit cards in exchange for rewards points.

And so, I encourage customers to use their credit cards to pay for house cleaning. Because that way they can save up their rewards points and apply those for frequent flyer points on their next vacation. Or they can buy something nice from the rewards company through their card company.

Who Collects the Money if it’s on Auto Pay?

So, you want to have a credit card on file and that way all you’re doing is sending a text to the customer.

“Hey Mrs. Jones, just want to give you heads up, I’ve got Caroline coming over to your house tomorrow morning from 10 until 2.

The payment for the house tomorrow is going to be $220.” (Or whatever the payment is.) “I’ll run it on your credit card if I don’t hear anything from you.” If there is an issue of any sort, please let me know and we’ll resolve it immediately.”

Confirm the Payment Along with Your Appointment

All right, so what you’ve done is you’ve confirmed the appointment. You let her know how much it was, you let her know that Caroline is the one that’s coming. And you let her know about your satisfaction guarantee.

So, you just want to keep it super simple, collect the money upfront and my suggestion is don’t run the credit card until after the cleaning is complete.

If you hear something back from her that afternoon or that evening, you’ve already run the credit card. And so, you can erase it before it actually processes usually at midnight. And if that doesn’t happen and everything is good and kind, then the money processes at midnight as normal.

Your Employee Can Report the Work

Just let it go, let Caroline go do the job, Caroline comes back and gives you a report, says everything went smoothly, that’s all she needs to know.

She doesn’t need to know how much the customer paid. She doesn’t need to know where the checks came from or whatever, who writes checks anymore? I mean, some people still do but for the most part, everybody now pays in a credit card.

That’s just the new norm, and it can be a bank card, it can be a debit card, it can be a company card, it can be a gift card someone gave them. It doesn’t matter as long as it processes through your credit card system. It doesn’t matter.

Everybody Pays Everything Now with Credit Cards

So, a lot of people pay with credit cards cause it’s easier for everyone. And it’s easier for you as the boss and it keeps your employee just focused on their job.

The object is to keep your employees happy and inspired to keep working for you. They don’t need to focus on how much money you make, or how much it costs to run a cleaning business. They just need to focus on their job.

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Resources For This Episode

Small Business for Dummies – https://amzn.to/2G1rFtD

Small Business Hacks: 100 Shortcuts to Success – https://amzn.to/2I7tw1B